


nothing stays buried

by saem



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (its the 40s COME ON), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Detective Noir, F/M, PTSD, Post-War, Smoking, femme fatale!clarke, veteran!bellamy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 01:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3156323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saem/pseuds/saem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hello there. I’m looking for the PI?” the man said, reaching over Clarke’s head to tap on the glass of her door, where CLARKE GRIFFIN, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR was printed. His breath smelled lightly of alcohol.</p><p>“You found her,” Clarke replied, taking a long drag on her cigarette for effect.</p><p>The man recoiled slightly. His dark eyes slid up and down her body, settling on her face with an odd quirk of his lips.</p><p>“Clarke Griffin,” she said, and held out her hand, “Private Investigator.”</p><p>AU in which Clarke is the femme fatale PI that Bellamy hires to find his missing mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. smoke gets in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> because clarke is more perceptive than people give her credit to be.
> 
> because bellamy in a suspenders is something i need in my life.
> 
> (this is as historically accurate as i need it to be.)

Clarke leaned back in her chair, lifting her feet up to rest on the desk. Pulling open a drawer, she grabbed the raggedy hardcover inside and slammed it shut. 

_The Modern Anatomy and Physiology: Fourth Edition_ was a textbook she read front to back and back to front in med school. But that was a long time ago. She mostly flicked through the book to relax now.

She opened it to a random page: The Respiratory System. The diagram was red and blue, marking veins and arteries like blood tributaries as they branched into the lungs. That reminded her.

After lighting a cigarette with a match, she held it between the fingers of her right hand, as her left kept the book open on her lap.

_Trachea, bronchi, bronchioles…_ she traced her finger down the man’s paper chest. Always a man in the textbooks. 

Huffing twin plumes of smoke from her nostrils, she flicked the page. Outside her window, she heard Tom, the busker, trumpeting a silky jazz song. Absently, she tapped her finger to the beat.

Then there was a loud, hurried knock at her door. Clarke jumped, pressing her cigarette into the textbook.

“Fuck!” she muttered, wiping the page and smearing ash across the diagram of bronchioles. She shut the book and dropped it on the desk.

The knock came again. It was rude, really.

“One moment!” Clarke called.

She stood, smoothing down her grey skirt. In all the commotion, she’d twisted her blouse off-center. Sighing, she straightened the buttons, re-tucked it into her skirt, and strode quickly to the door. A quick pat-down of her hair, and she opened it.

“Hello?” she said, not trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

It was a tall, dark-haired stranger. He loomed in the doorway, holding his jacket over one shoulder. He was dressed formally, but the fidgeting movements he made spoke to his discomfort in the suspenders and rolled-up sleeves.

He looked like more of a white t-shirt kind of man.

And he was staring at her.

“Hello?” she repeated, ignoring the blush that rose unbidden to her cheeks.

He was—unfortunately—a handsome man. With dark, bronzed skin, a freckled nose, brown eyes that threatened to swallow her—

_Jesus_ , Clarke thought, _get it together._

“Hello there. I’m looking for the PI?” the man said, reaching over Clarke’s head to tap on the glass of her door, where CLARKE GRIFFIN, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR was printed. His breath smelled lightly of alcohol.

“You found her,” Clarke replied, taking a long drag on her cigarette for effect.

The man recoiled slightly. His dark eyes slid up and down her body, settling on her face with an odd quirk of his lips.

“Clarke Griffin,” she said, and held out her hand, “Private Investigator.”

“Bellamy Blake,” he shook her hand stiffly. “Pardon me.”

The man, this Bellamy, started to walk backwards, his shiny shoes making _shhh_ noises on the hallway carpet.

“My office is this way, Mr Blake,” Clarke frowned, placing a solitary hand on her hip.

“No offence to you, Princess, really,” he said, turning his back, “it’s just, I don’t—“

“Trust a woman with your case?” Clarke bristled at the nickname, “What’s your rank, soldier?”

Bellamy paused, swivelled on his heel, and marched right back to her door. Straightening her back, Clarke kept her face the picture of serenity as he loomed over her. It wasn’t the first time a man had tried to make her feel small.

“Excuse me?” he said, and his voice was so low and deep it practically vibrated through the floor.

But Clarke Griffin had been threatened before, by scarier men.

“Well, it’s just obvious,” she shrugged, then raised her hand, “your breath smells of alcohol and it’s hardly a quarter after noon. Anybody drinking that early has things to forget.”

Bellamy clenched his jaw, his dark eyes narrowed. At his side, his right pointer finger twitched.

“Then there’s the nervous tick in your finger; I assumed you were fidgeting because of your clothes, but now I’m not so sure. And that’s not to mention the bullet wound in your forearm, Mr Blake.” 

Clarke crossed her arms in front of her chest. This stranger was hard to read, beyond his physical signs. Her years of medical school had trained her well enough to recognize battle fatigue, which was often treated with liquor use. Her favourite bar could be found filled with veterans at any time of the day or night.

And of course, when she noticed the round, puckered scar on his arm, revealed by the rolled-up sleeves, it was case closed.

Bellamy had rocked back on his heels. He hastily unrolled his sleeves, re-buttoning them at the wrist. There was a light flush to his cheeks, an embarrassed avoidance of her gaze.

Clarke delighted in demonstrating her intelligence. To keep a professional air, she bit the inside of her cheek to stop smiling.

“Alright, wise guy. Private First Class,” he replied finally, a gruff admission.

Clarke nodded sagely. “Do I have the case?”

His tongue wiped across his bottom lip, and he sighed. “Yes. But only because you’re the best that I can afford.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. She pushed open the door to her office and walked around to the other side of her desk. The door clicked as Bellamy closed it.

Clarke slid back into her chair. Bellamy remained standing, despite the seat beside him. He did, however, toss his coat on to the back of it. His hips made little movements as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, never taking his dark eyes off of her.

“So, Mr Blake, what can I do for you?” Clarke asked, lighting another cigarette. His intense gaze made her fidgety.

She held out the box to him and he shook his head. “No thanks. I never smoked before the war. And now…”

The taste of the smoke was attached to the life of the battlefield. Clarke put the box down on her desk. When she exhaled smoke, she blew it to the side respectfully.

“I need you to find my mother,” he said in one rush of breath, placing both his hands on the solid wood.

To stop them shaking, Clarke was sure.

“Okay,” she began, opening one of her drawers and retrieving a fresh, leather notebook. Snapping the elastic band off the cover, she opened it to the first page, pen hovering. “Let’s start with her name.”

“Aurora Blake. Forty-five years old.”

“Okay. How long has she been missing?”

“I guess,” Bellamy rubbed a hand over his face, brows furrowed in thought, “a little over 25 hours.”

Clarke must not have disguised her dubiousness well enough, because Bellamy shook his head at her expression.

“This isn’t normal. I know that 48 hours is the minimum to file a report. Believe me, _I know._ She’s not like this, alright? Something’s happened.” His voice rose slightly; this was a conversation he had multiple times already, Clarke could tell.

“Alright. Okay, Bellamy,” she said, in her most soothing tone, “I believe you.”

Closing his mouth, the man sunk into his seat at last.

+++

 

Bellamy wasn’t quite sure how it happened.

One second he was looking for Detective Clarke Griffin, Private Investigator, and the next he was sitting in front of Clarke Griffin, Private Eye and Dynamite Gal. The phonebook hadn’t mentioned her big blue eyes, and he had been totally unprepared for them.

Those clear blue eyes of hers had raked him over once, twice, and delivered his pride to him with a wave of one small hand. After she proved her observational skills, Bellamy knew that he would be an idiot not to put her on the case. That, and she _really_ was the most affordable PI in Ark.

Sitting across from her now, Bellamy shifted his weight nervously. Her quiet concentration made him feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. It didn’t help that she was a hell of a dame.

That curled blonde hair, bouncing around her face with every tilt of her head. And those eyes, calculating and piercing him; halfway through the conversation he was feeling like a skewered piece of meat. He had to call her Princess, with a face like that. Maybe Gumshoe Princess.

“Does she have any close friends, siblings?” Clarke asked, looking over her notebook.

Bellamy scratched his chin. “Yeah, but I’ve already talked to them. Nothing.”

“Names?”

He sighed, “Joan Miller, her neighbour. She used to work in the artillery factory with Wendy Green. And Lucy Daniels, she’s an old friend.”

Clarke scribbled away, the red of her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Bellamy tried not to be mesmerized by the action, but he was looking for a distraction from the sinking feeling in his stomach.

The police were, unsurprisingly, useless. _48 hours is the minimum, son._ They didn’t care. Authority figures were rarely kind to the Blake family, or anybody that lived in his neighbourhood, really. Piece of shit cops.

“I wanna help, too,” he interrupted, “I wanna help find her.”

The PI leaned back in her chair, squashing out the last of her cigarette in the ashtray.

“Absolutely not,” she replied.

Bellamy bit back the indignant noise that rose in his throat, settling for, “Why the hell not?”

“You ever heard of a conflict of interest?” Clarke asked, rattling her fingers on the cover of her notebook. “Besides, you’ll slow me down.”

This time Bellamy allowed for his snort of derision. “Slow you down? I’m the best lead you have. You need me.”

“I work best alone.”

“By choice? Or maybe nobody wants to put up with your know-it-all attitude,” Bellamy sneered, surprised at the vitriol in his voice.

To his pleasure, her cheeks flushed with colour. “You’re an ass,” she said flatly, eyebrows knitting together.

“And you’re too serious. I haven’t seen you smile once since I met you.” Bellamy said, not sure if he quite disguised the disappointment in his words. Getting her riled up, cheeks flushed and curls bouncing, was an image he was enjoying far too much.

Clarke groaned. “Oh, pardon me for not cracking a joke about your missing mother. I take my job very seriously because it’s _serious_.”

The laughing smile slid from Bellamy’s face.

“You’ll slow me down, Mr Blake, I promise you that,” Clark continued, leaning forward over the desk, so that her hair cast a shadow across her face, “what I do is _investigate._ I dig up dirt and I make sense of it. Sometimes it’s unsavoury. You say you wanna help. You think you can handle it.”

The ice in her stare made Bellamy swallow.

“I have seen families fall apart. I have been paid, in full, halfway through an investigation because the client _couldn’t handle anymore._ Do you understand that?” Clarke’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing stays buried. Not with me.”

“Good,” Bellamy said, resting his elbows on the desk. “She’s my mother. I’m ready to go digging whenever you are.”

Up close, he could see the defined arch of her Cupid’s bow upper lip, and the way it pulled to the side with her little— _very_ little _—_ smile.

“You know what? If you're so keen, maybe a sidekick wouldn’t be so bad,” she assented. Her eyebrow flicked upwards.

Bellamy held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. It’s not a _sidekick_ situation. Partners, more like.”

“That’s a little intimate, Mr Blake. I just met you. My young ward, perhaps.” Her mouth curved into a sly smile, an expression that was mirrored on Bellamy’s face.

“I’m almost certainly older than you, Miss Griffin.”

“Physically, maybe. But experience trumps age, Mr Blake, and that leaves your case in very capable hands.” Clarke stretched the elastic back over her notebook with an audible _snap!_

“Well, we’ll just see how it goes, Princess,” Bellamy shrugged.

Clarke glanced at her watch, a timepiece that seemed masculine for her delicate wrist.

“How about I probe your memory over lunch, see if I can jostle any clues?” she asked, but already she was standing up, grabbing her tailored jacket off the coatrack behind her.

Bellamy stood up as well, slipping his arms into his coat. Her all-business attitude put him at ease: if nothing else, she would give her full attention to the case. That queasy feeling in his stomach had lessened to a distant throb.

Her hair bounced as she sauntered past him, and for a moment he was annoyed at the modest length of her skirt. Burying his unholy thoughts, he followed her outside the office. After she had locked the door, he had an urge to link his arm through hers.

Gumshoe Princess had other ideas. She took off at a brisk pace, and Bellamy heard her stomach growl from three feet behind.

This would be a very interesting partnership.


	2. the fog of war

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's heavy on the angst.

Clarke’s favourite diner was a couple blocks down the street; a little corner spot that served the best coffee in town. Or at least, the best coffee within two miles of Clarke’s apartment

She was hyper-aware of her client as they strode down the street. He walked close behind her, his feet making heavy footfalls on the sidewalk. Oddly, Clarke felt almost like she was racing him—or at the very least, avoiding being beside him.

Due to the fact that she was practically speed walking, they reached the diner in no time at all. Slightly out of breath, Clarke slowed down.

Bellamy shot forward and opened the door for her. “After you.” There was an odd expression on his face, one she couldn’t quite name.

They took a booth by the window, unusually free considering it was the peak of lunch time. The diner was packed.

Clarke didn’t mind. The more people, the more private the conversation.

Their waitress came over quickly, dressed in her blue uniform. She had dark hair, braided away from her face in a strange style that Clarke couldn’t call unattractive. She’d had this waitress several times before, so she greeted her with a smile. Octavia, if she remembered correctly, looked a little distracted.

“Hiya, Clarke,” she said, and then turned her head. “Bell!”

He looked up sheepishly from the menu. “Hey, O.”

Clarke looked from the waitress to her client. A connection was building in her head—their dark, thick hair; the brand of unnatural beauty they shared; the way Octavia’s shoulders had relaxed when she said his name—

“Siblings?” Clarke asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Yeah!” Octavia smiled, “how’d you know?”

Bellamy peeked at Clarke from behind the menu. “She’s a PI. I hired her to help find mom.”

The younger girl’s expression grew serious. Her green eyes—gentler than her brother’s, but still calculating and intense—appraised Clarke. “You any good?”

“Relax, O. She’s very good,” Bellamy put his hand on his sister’s arm. “Sorry, Clarke, she can be a little intense.”

“Must run in the family,” Clarke muttered.

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been worrying a lot,” Octavia covered her brother’s hand with her own. “Let me know if I can help in any way, alright?”

“I understand. And of course,” Clarke nodded.

“Can I get some service over here? Hello?” the voice came from the other side of the diner, a grumpy uniformed man waving his hand.

Octavia rolled her eyes. “I’ll be back.”

Bellamy watched his sister trot away, a little smile on his lips. When he turned back to Clarke, his eyes were soft. “She’s a good kid. Scattered as she is.”

“She didn’t even take my order,” Clarke grumbled, rubbing her tummy. She deserved the cramping for skipping breakfast. Deciding to get right down to it, Clarke pulled her notebook from her jacket pocket, along with a pen.

“Okay, tell me how this all started.”

Bellamy scratched the back of his neck with his hand.

“Well, I don’t live with my mother. So it was Octavia who noticed her absence first, and called me.”

“What time was this?”

“She called me at about eleven yesterday morning. The night before, mom had left her a note on the table, saying she’d be in late. Yesterday is Octavia’s day off, so she slept in. She was alone when she woke up. Then she called me.”

“Do you have the note, by any chance?”

Bellamy dug around in the pockets of his jacket, finally producing a folded bit of paper. He smoothed the creases on the table, and then slid it across.

A unremarkable piece of paper.

_I’ll be in late tonight, octopus. Don’t wait up! Love you, mom._

The message was written in neat handwriting, signed off with a heart. Looking at it gave Clarke a tugging feeling in her chest. The nickname was especially hard to read.

She pushed it back across the table. Normally, she would keep it as a clue, but it felt cruel to take it away from Bellamy and the inner pocket of his jacket, where he kept it close to his heart.

“So then what happened?”

Bellamy folded the note up and stuck it back in the pocket. 

“So I went over. Octavia was all freaked, of course. It’s really not like my mother to not come home.”

“But she does stay out late.”

“It’s not unheard of.”

“Where does she go?”

Bellamy chewed his lip. “I’m not sure.”

“That’s alright,” Clarke waved her hand. “Your mother doesn’t have any enemies, or anybody that’d want to hurt her?”

“No,” Bellamy frowned, “nobody like that.”

From the way his hand fisted on the table, Clarke guessed what would happen to somebody who did.

At that moment, Octavia returned to their table. She placed a black coffee in front of Bellamy, along with a BLT. In front of Clarke, she left a coffee, a croissant, and a chicken  salad sandwich.

“Sorry about that. You like chicken salad, right?” Octavia asked.

Clarke looked at the plate with wide eyes, tucking her notebook into her jacket. “Yeah. Good memory.”

“Great. Wave if you need anything.” She said, and left them to go back into the fray of the diner at lunchtime.

As Clarke dug into the food voraciously, Bellamy sipped his coffee. Finishing the croissant in three bites, Clarke grabbed the sugar and poured a shower of white into her coffee.

“Did you want any coffee with your sugar?” Bellamy chuckled.

Clarke took a gulp of her sweet drink. “God, no.”

“I thought private investigators were all hard-boiled, black-coffee fuddy-duddies.”

“Who says I’m not a fuddy-duddy?”

Bellamy grinned. “Really, though, how did a girl like you become a PI?”

Clarke took a big bite out of her sandwich, chewing slowly. She’d rather they’d focus on the case at hand, instead of her personal life. But she also knew that her occupation confused most people.

“I decided I wanted to help people; give them answers that they couldn’t find on their own,” she replied after swallowing her mouthful.

“That’s noble,” Bellamy replied. Clarke narrowed her eyes, but his expression was genuine as he looked at her.

At the other side of the restaurant, a teenager bumped into a waitress, making her drop a stack of plates with a resounding _CRASH!_ Then several things happened.

Bellamy bumped the table with his leg so hard that his coffee toppled over. As Clarke leaped up to keep from getting hit with the black liquid, he ducked under the table, curling into himself against the red seat.

The murmur of the diner, briefly silenced by the spectacle, returned to the room as customers turned back to their meals.

Clarke stepped to the other side of the table. Bellamy was curled with his hands over his head, trembling. To see his huge body collapsed in on itself was so strange an image it took Clarke a second to realize what had happened.

“Bellamy,” she said, touching his shoulder softly.

His hand snapped upwards and closed on her wrist, a grip tight enough to make her gasp out. The clamminess of his palm shocked her. When he looked up at her, she could see the whites all around his eyes.

“Bellamy! You’re in the Shaker! The diner! Let go!” She finally freed herself by yanking her arm at the weakest point of his hold, where his fingers and thumb met. The force of the movement made her arm bang against the table, soaking the sleeve of her jacket with coffee.

Bellamy’s hand remained clawed in the air for a moment, before it dropped to his chest. With careful movements, he sat up straight again, his breath coming in short little spurts. His hair had fallen out of his part, curling on his tan forehead where it was dampened with sweat.

Clarke stood there awkwardly, holding the damp sleeve of her jacket away from her body. Her wrist throbbed.

“Are—are you alright?” she asked in a small voice.

Bellamy glanced at her. “Yeah. It’s nothing,” he said, his eyes falling to where she was rubbing the wrist. “Did I—?”

Clarke dropped her arm. “It’s not your fault. It’s okay.”

“It’s _not_ okay. I’m sorry.” Bellamy noticed the condition of the table and let out a sigh. He grabbed a handful of white napkins from the dispenser and began to sop up the mess.

“No, really,” Clarke said as she sat down, taking some napkins herself, “it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Bellamy’s jaw ticked. “Then how should I feel?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke replied, making a pile out of her wet, black napkins.

“It never leaves you,” he muttered, “the war.”

Clarke looked up, but Bellamy’s eyes were on the shaking fingers of his right hand.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and then gathered up all the wet napkins in his hands and stood. “I’m gonna chuck these.”

Clarke watched him walk to the men’s bathroom, finally letting out the breath she’d been holding.

+++

Bellamy stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Cold water dripped down his neck from where he’d splashed it on his face, dotting his white shirt. His reflection was sallow staring back at him.

Exhaling another shaky breath, he closed his eyes. If he wasn’t so pale, he probably would have been flushed red. Hiding out in the bathroom until his embarrassment passed was cowardly, but he couldn’t bring himself to stay out there with her any longer.

The way she looked at him, with compassion and fear in her eyes, made him want to shrink away, curl up until there was nothing left for her to pity.

_It’s not your fault._

Maybe it wasn’t. But if every loud noise sent him back to the trenches, breathing in gunpowder and dirt, how could he survive? He felt like a stained thing. The miasma of the battlefield had seeped inside of him like a black fog and left him yellowed and reeking. 

His hands clenched on the sink, knuckles straining as white as the porcelain he gripped. Another ten seconds of deep breathing, and he released his hold. 

In the pocket of his jacket, there was a comb. He pulled it out and re-shaped his hair into the parted hairstyle he wore. The repetitive action soothed him immensely, and his heartbeat had all but returned to normal.

The door to the bathroom opened. He didn’t need to turn around to know.

“Bell.”

The arms of his sister wrapped around his middle as she hugged him from behind. He could feel the warmth of her cheek as she pressed her face into the middle of his back. At first Bellamy tensed up, arms still close to his head from when he’d been combing. But then he dropped his hands to cover her arms, and looked up to the grey ceiling to swallow the lump in his throat.

“Are you okay now?” Octavia asked, her voice muffled.

“Yeah. I calmed down,” Bellamy replied, trying too hard to keep the thickness in his voice hidden.

They stayed like that for another moment, until Octavia finally loosened her hold. Bellamy turned around to face her.

She was gnawing at her lip as she looked at him, worry etched out in every line of her face. She was too young to have those wrinkles on her forehead and at the corners of her mouth. This _battle fatigue_ was tiring out everybody that got close to him.

“I hate to see you like this,” she said, as her eyes alternated from staring at the floor to staring at the wall.

“Yeah. Well, I hate being like this,” Bellamy replied, “and doing this to you.”

“Stop that. That’s not what I meant. I just don’t like to see you hurting. Makes me feel like hurting too. Why don’t you go see that doctor—“

“O.” he said, the edge in his voice sharp enough to make her look up, “that’s not an option.”

“I can put aside some of my pay cheque for it, it’s not like I’m paying rent like you—“

The idea of Octavia giving him money so he could afford to see a fancy doctor was so ludicrous Bellamy laughed, but it came out as a broken sound.

“It’s not your weight to carry, O. Come on.”

“Don’t talk like it’s not my problem! You’re my brother. Let me take care of you.” Octavia was pleading with him now, her green eyes rimmed red.

“I’m dealing with it, okay?” He spat, angry at the way her tears made his stomach twist.

“Getting buzzed before noon is not _dealing with it!”_ her voice bounced off the walls, shrill and cutting.

Bellamy glanced at the door, fearful of the way her words echoed. “Octavia!”

“Don’t shut me out, Bell. Please. I lost mom and I don’t want—“ her voice cracked.

Bellamy wrapped his arms around her before she could finish the sentence, curling his entire body around hers, wishing he could shield her from the pain. He rubbed circles on her back with his palm, whispering nonsense into her hair. Her small body shook as she cried against his shirt.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay? You hear me? I’m right here,” he said, “and I’m gonna find mom.”

Octavia pulled back from the hug so that she could face her brother. The green of her irises was never so vibrant as it was when she cried, contrasted against the pink of her puffy lids.

“J-just promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“When you’re in pain, let me know,” she wiped at the skin under her eyes, exhaling, “your weight is my weight, got it? We carry it together.”

Bellamy tilted his head to the side.

“You already said _anything,_ dick!” Octavia punched his arm.

“Okay, fine, I will. Happy?” 

“Yeah,” Octavia smiled, but then glanced past Bellamy to her reflection in the mirror. “Ugh. I can’t believe you made me cry, you jerk.”

“Sorry, O.”

“It’s fine,” she sighed, already dabbing under her eyes with a damp paper towel, “you go on. I’ll just tell Carl I had an allergic reaction or something.”

Bellamy took one last look at her, leaned over the sink, and then turned and left the bathroom.

Clarke was sitting at the table, flicking through her notebook. When Bellamy approached, she looked up. He was grateful for the lack of pity in her gaze.

“So, shouldn’t we go canvas the neighbourhood or something? Talk to Joan and them?” Bellamy asked, pulling out his wallet from his back pocket.

Clarke blinked rapidly. “Uh, yeah. That would be the next step.”

Bellamy placed a couple bills on the table, more than the total, but he felt like spoiling his sister.

(He always felt like doing that.)

“Well, what are we waiting for, huh?” 

Clarke jumped out of the booth to stand beside him. “Thanks for lunch.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said breezily, looking at her from the corner of his eye, “ _really._ ”

She had the grace to nod. Bellamy smiled, charmed by how she perceived the boundaries between them. A dumber person might have pried. But Clarke was very smart, Bellamy realized more and more.

They strode out of the diner into the sunlight together.

There was work to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BLAKE SIBLINGS 4 EVER!!!! feedback is always appreciated! it makes my day and keeps me motivated :)

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at saemson!


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